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There are only two things I really miss about not really ever eating pasta or pizza any more. One is spaghetti bolognese and the other is, well, pizza. I just really miss pizza toppings – melted mozzarella, tomato sauce, ham or salami with the edges slightly burnt…

I have trialled courgetti bolognese but my husband wasn’t keen on it. But this insane pizza, with a base made from cauliflower, ground almonds and oats, might just work okay as a mid-week substitute for a Pizza Express La Reine.

I made it last night and my friend Simon gamely tried it with me and liked it. Simon is no arbiter as his standards are insanely low – but he did once tell me that a cobbler I was trying out was “unexceptional”, (I agreed), so he’s not a total yes-man.

You do not, let’s be honest, get that intense frontal-lobe hit from this that you do from some sort of spanky, lively sourdough crust gimme gimme from Franco Manca, but you do get to have those flavours you might be missing; the tomato sauce, the melted mozzarella, the slightly burnt ham…. though I did this one last night with very thinly sliced courgette and onion as Simon is vegetarian and it was, you know, actually really nice.

Anna Jones’ mad pizza

for 2

Preheat your oven HOT to 220C

1 cauliflower

100g ground almonds

100g oats

2 eggs

salt and pepper

olive oil

1 Break the cauliflower up into florets and whizz in a whizzer until finely ground.

2 put in a bowl with the almonds and the oats and give it all a mix. Add salt and pepper.

3 Make a well in the middle and crack in two eggs, mix around.

4 Generously grease a large baking sheet with olive oil and then press your cauliflower mixture down all around it to make a flat base. Then slide it into the oven for 20 mins. Check occasionally to make sure your oven isn’t burning the shit out of it as some ovens are hotter than others. Some burnt parts around the edge are fine.

5 Cover with your favourite toppings. Turn the oven up to as high as it will go and then put the pizza back in for 8 minutes. I also finished mine off under a hot grill.

Like this:

esthermcoren

9 thoughts on “Anna Jones mad pizza”

I don’t know why you deprive yourself of various foods. You are not overweight! Enjoy being young and lovely while you can, which I now see I was. I always enjoy your blogs and comments on clothes and people. I am almost seventy so we don’t have age in common.

I too miss pizza more than words can express as Im constantly trying to avoid white carbs but we do sometimes have one at the weekend. A good margherita pizza is my death row meal dont even like toppings on my pizza just a bit of chilli oil. This is actually making me hungry as it looks very pizza like. Will definitely give this a go. What sort of oats do you use? I struggle with oats? And can you cut it like a pizza? I would imagine its a bit crumbly. Cauliflower seems to be taking over the world ATM but I do think it was underrated as a vegetable. Great post!

Apropos cauliflower taking over the world, we went vegetarian for a fortnight during Lent and tried Ottolenghi’s cauli ‘steaks’, about which we – voracious carnivores, both – were wildly sceptical BUT turns out slabs of cauliflower fried gently in butter is rather good, actually … it will be reappearing in the autumn. Butter: making vegetables great again.

I shan’t be trying the pizza as I am quite happy with my bangin’ Pilates bod currently (always) obscured by a booze-and-carb-filled fat suit. And Fat Toni’s sourdough pizzas are worth travelling to Stroud for. Or Cheltenham, where they are opening a sit-down joint, fyi. I mean, you know, the children might like it *fails to insert gurning emoticons from laptop*.

Is it a crunchy base or is it softer like bread? Because my real weakness, my vice, my one true love is a massive slice (or two or three, or the whole thing) of true Italian thin base pizza that I can fold in half and post into my ravenous gob with trembling fingers. If a substitute to that would reduce the amount of muffin on the muffin top, I’d totally try it.